This is part of a series of posts about the role of rogues in Ulduar. The focus is on 10-man raids, but on occasion mention will be made about 25-man strategies as well. This is not meant to be a general strategy guide. It is completely targeted at rogues, their abilities, and their strengths in specific combats. Much of what is written could apply to other melee dps as well.

Auriaya (however you choose to pronounce that) is better known as the crazy cat lady. She wanders around in Ulduar with her feline companions. He fight is fairly complicated. There is a lot going on, and its sometimes frustrating. Everyone hates fear mechanics. Also, this fight has unique positioning requirements so you may want to gather some expertise gear.

The pull is the toughest part of the fight. You need your tanks to control both the boss and her cats (two cats on 10-man, four cats on 25-man). Unfortunately, as soon as they are in range the cats will Pounce ahead of the boss and can go for a healer. That makes it very hard to control initial threat. A lot of raids choose to hide around a corner and leave a shaman totem, hunter trap, or DK death and decay in her path to cause the pull. With this method, due to line of sight all of them will come around the corner together, making it easier to pick them up without a Pounce. Then the cats need to be separated because they buff each other if they are close.

Don’t contribute to a bad pull. Stay in stealth and out of the way until the tanks have established aggro and positioned the cats.

At the direction of your raid leader you will focus dps on the cats first and kill them one at a time. They do not respawn. About a minute into the fight a new add appears – a Feral Defender. This is another cat, but a really annoying one. It has an aggro wipe every few seconds and it will dart around the raid doing damage to everyone. It can stun, it can put DoTs, it can interrupt casting. Its just an annoyance. Some raids ignore it and heal through its effects. Others kill it.

Even if the Feral Defender dies, it doesn’t stop being annoying. It will leave a void zone where it dies. And then it will respawn! Arrgh! Fortunately, every time it respawns it does a little less damage. It can respawn up to nine times.

As melee dps you’re most likely going to ignore the Feral Defender. With it running all around and being untankable you won’t be able to maintain melee range on it. Once it comes out, just focus on the requirements of the boss. If your raid kills the feral defender, be prepared to quickly move out of the void zone.

Auriaya has her own challenges. The tank will hold her still for a while, allowing some good dps time. However, melee dps will not be standing behind her. She has an ability called Sonic Screech that does massive damage in a frontal cone. The damage is split between everyone it hits, so you and other raiders will want to stack up in front of her and divide that damage. This is why you’ll want to have expertise gear on for this fight.

Periodically she will summon a swarm of little tiny cats. They can be killed by one or two Fan of Knives.

As you try to get into a good rotation, you’ll get hit with a Horrifying Screech which is a 5-second fear. Your Cloak won’t prevent it. A priest’s Fear Ward or a Tremor Totem will help. A PvP trinket will work if you feel like equipping that. As soon as the fear is dispelled, you want to run quickly back to the boss because she is channeling Sentinel Blast, which does a lot of shadow damage to the whole raid and has a stacking debuff that increases damage. If it stacks too much it will wipe the raid, so someone has to interrupt it. Honestly, mages and shamans are better for this because they have a ranged interrupt. If the raid leaves it to you and your Kick to do the interrupts, you’ll really want to have a reliable fear-breaking mechanism to let you get back to the boss ASAP.

Once the Sentinel Blast is interrupted, stack in front of the tank again and go back to dps. Between the fears, interrupts, void zones, and the Feral Defender you probably won’t be able to get a good attack rotation going. Make sure to keep Rupture on her so that your DoT is ticking even when you’re not on target. This is a fight that is very stressful on everyone. Lots of raid damage, positioning issues, fears, adds. Whew!

Unfortunately, she doesn’t offer a whole lot of rogue loot as a reward for her demise. On 10-man you’ll only be looking for the Nimble Climber’s Belt. On 25-man there is the Gloves of the Stonereaper. There is also Siren’s Cry, but you’ll want to pass that to hunters before you get a shot. And there is Stonerender if there are any mace rogues out there who want a 1.5 speed mace.

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4 Responses to “A Rogue in Ulduar – Auriaya”

Quick remark (as usual ^^):
You don’t HAVE to stand in front of her all of the time, just attack from behind and circle around her when she begins casting sonic screech, this should give your melee classes a substantial dps boost on this fight.

Honestly, with all the running around in this fight (fears, void zones,etc…) along with the fact that the tank also moves so the boss is not stationary, its a feat if you can keep track of where you are at any given time. While that’s a good suggestion if you can manage it, I know that I am more worried about being in place for the interrupts and sonic scream, and if my dps dips a bit then so be it.

You can use Killing Spree and Vanish to avoid getting feared when she casts Howling Screech. This obviously helps improve your dps by being able to stay on the boss rather than running off with the rest of the raid.